174 FRAGMENTS OF SCIENCE. 



conclusion that science had to offer, provided it was 

 duly backed by fact and argument, who entirely mis- 

 took Mr. Darwin's views. In fact, the work needed an 

 expounder, and it found one in Mr. Huxley. I know 

 nothing more admirable in the way of scientific exposi- 

 tion than those early articles of his on the origin of 

 species. He swept the curve of discussion through the 

 really significant points of the subject, enriched his 

 exposition with profound original remarks and reflec- 

 tions, often summing up in a single pithy sentence an 

 argument which a less compact mind would have 

 spread over pages. But there is one impression made 

 by the book itself which no exposition of it, however 

 luminous, can convey; and that is the impression of 

 the vast amount of labour, both of observation and of 

 thought, implied in its production. Let us glance at 

 its principles. 



It is conceded on all hands that what are called 

 ' varieties ' are continually produced. The rule is pro- 

 bably without exception. No chick, or child, is in all 

 respects and particulars the counterpart of its brother 

 and sister; and in such differences we have ' variety ' 

 incipient. No naturalist could tell how far this varia- 

 tion could be carried; but the great mass of them held 

 that never, by any amount of internal or external 

 change, nor by the mixture of both, could the offspring 

 of the same progenitor so far deviate from each other 

 as to constitute different species. The function of the 

 experimental philosopher is to combine the conditions 

 of Nature and to produce her results; and this was the 

 method of Darwin.* He made himself acquainted 

 with what could, without any manner of doubt, be done 



* The first step only towards experimental demonstration has 

 been taken. Experiments now begun might, a couple of centu- 

 ries hence, furnish data of incalculable value, which ought to be 

 supplied to the science of the future. 



